


The Unforgiven Boys

by TerrusDacktellus



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: 1k promptathon, Gen, Not Shippy, and some Xanya, well there's some Spuffy if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 17:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4573059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerrusDacktellus/pseuds/TerrusDacktellus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During s7, Xander reaches an uneasy understanding with his undead housemate, as he realises that they share more common ground than he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unforgiven Boys

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on Tumblr: "Spike and Xander developing a friendship when Spike stayed in Xander’s apartment in S7 - from luscious2" - this is less a friendship and more of an awkward truce, but I tried.

Every morning at roughly 7am, the screaming started. After a while, Xander just stopped setting an alarm, because what was the point? Spike’s frantic howling drowned out his clock radio anyway. The weird part was, he wasn’t even that angry. He didn’t have the energy to be angry anymore. The caterwauling became part of the routine.

6.59am - dream strange dreams of white satin and blood and Anya’s face with the demon mask flickering over it. 7.00am - sit bolt upright in bed like some dumb movie cliché when Spike starts shrieking like he’s on fire. 7.02am - get up. Show great restraint in not actually setting the creep on fire. 7.03 - 7.06am - sit on the can and contemplate the meaning of life. Attempt to ignore the racket from the ex-closet. 7.07am - bang on Blood Breath’s door until the yelling subsides to a quiet moaning. 7.08am - breakfast. 7.18am - shower. 7.30am - leave for work. See? The Xan Man had it all worked out. Nothing could mess with the routine. Nothing could screw up his - _fucking shit, Spike, it’s a_ Saturday.

Xander shoved his head under his pillow in a futile attempt to block out the noise. Damn, for such a skinny little bastard, Spike had a voice like an air raid siren. He clamped the pillow more firmly over his ears, and out of desperation, started humming. _Come on Xander, you managed to sleep through those drunken assholes hollering at each other for 19 years, you can sleep through this._

Another scream, the gurgling, tearing kind that true terror rips right from your diaphragm. Xander was intimately acquainted with that stomach-clenching, wet-your-pants feeling and for a split second he felt a weird sense of kindred with Spike. Who would’ve thought Gimpy the Vampire had feelings? 

He winced as he stumped through the kitchen, leg muscles still not quite awake and ear muscles so not equipped to deal with this kind of decibel range on a weekend. It was a freaking miracle his neighbours hadn’t complained yet. They probably thought he was running some kind of freakish, early morning sex dungeon. Right, he should be so lucky. He paused outside the door to Spike’s closet, fooled by a temporary lull in the yelling into thinking that maybe some kindly deity had taken pity on him and knocked the crazy vampire the fuck out. 

“AAAAAAAAAAGH!” 

Oh right, yeah. Sunnydale. His shitty life. No such thing as a kindly god. 

“Knock it off, Spike,” he roared, pounding on the door with his fist. The scream petered out and after a moment, was replaced by a slightly quieter, choked sobbing. That was new. He turned to go back to bed, then turned again and stared at the door. The crying went on and on. Beginning to get irritated with himself, he turned back towards his own room. Little shit deserved every single moment of agony after what he did to Buffy. He didn’t deserve to be alive at all, even in his weak approximation of it. The weeping took on the irregular, spluttering quality that indicated that the weeper had given up on non-essential things, like actually breathing. Apparently, he cried like a human as well. Wonderful. 

_Go back to bed, Xander. Go back to bed, back to bed, you idiot, go back to bed._

“Hey, Nosferatu.” Why had he opened the door? Spike was sitting up on the narrow bed, his head resting on his bent knees. “Keep it down, willya? It’s Saturday. Trying to get some shuteye.” 

God, he sounded like his dad. Spike was sitting up and rocking in bed, his arms wrapped around him like some imaginary straight jacket, streaked with blood. Wait a second. Blood? Xander strode into the room and grabbed him by the bicep, flinching in disgust at how cold his skin was. It was like squeezing dead meat. 

“What did you do?!” 

His father echoed in the contemptuous snarl in his voice, forcing him to do what the frighteningly cool vampire flesh had not and let go of him. Dark snail trails of blood wound around Spike’s arms and his fingers were coated with it, like henna on an Indian bride. But less pretty and more gross and actually that was a really shitty analogy, way to go Xander’s brain. In his defence, it was 7am on Saturday morning. He was not supposed to be conscious, never mind dealing with a vampire who’d apparently tried to claw his heart out in his sleep. There was a raw patch dead centre on his chest, scraped bare by his nails. Not for the first time, Xander wondered what the hell he was dreaming about. 

“You’ve ruined the sheets.” 

It was a dumb thing to say, but one thing at a time. Sheets he could deal with. Self-destructive vampires were above his pay grade. Spike blinked at him, dazed confusion and tears swimming in his eyes. 

“Get up.” 

Spike just sat there, either unwilling or unable to move, so he grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled. The sheet slipped away as he stumbled to his feet and Xander got an eyeful of Not So Little Spike, because naturally the Big Bad was too cool for pajamas. The very Big Bad. Ugh, he was gonna need to bleach his retinas after this.

“Go have a shower,” he said, giving Spike a little shove towards the door. He stumbled and then to Xander’s surprise, obeyed, shambling off in the general direction of the bathroom. Xander turned back to examine the bloodied sheets with dismay, then stripped the bed and bundled them up in his arms. 

“Couldn’t have made more of a mess if he’d actually tried,” he groused, as he shoved the bedding into the washer. He should really treat them first, but screw it, they were cheap sheets and Spike had to sleep on them, not him. If he didn’t want stained sheets, he shouldn’t have bled on them. 

* * *

“Don’t tell Buffy.” 

Spike spoke quietly but Xander still jumped in his seat and dropped his spoon into his bowl. Milk and Lucky Charms spattered his face and he twisted to glare at the current bane of his existence, who was currently dripping in the middle of his kitchen. At least he was wearing at towel this time. The angry, red cross hatching on his chest had already begun to fade. Vampire healing, nice for some. 

“Don’t tell Buffy,” he repeated. “Please.”

Xander snorted angrily and wiped his face with the back of his arm. 

“There’s no way in hell I’m telling Buffy,” he snapped. 

“Thank you,” said Spike gravely, refusing to rise to the bait and Xander got angry. Spike was the one who flew off the handle, the hot head, the short fuse of the bunch and it was just wrong that he swallowed every insult, every barb Xander threw at him, like a good little martyr. _Fuck_ that. Everything was so wrong these days, so topsy turvy, upside-down, his whole world split open and confused but this one thing he could make right. Spike would not get to pretend to be a good man. 

“Don’t thank me,” he snarled, shoving his chair back from the table so violently that it nearly fell over. “I am not doing this for you. I would tell her in a heartbeat, if I didn’t know that she’d be here every damn morning, with that look on her face, worrying about you, trying to fix you and you don’t deserve ANY OF IT, YOU AREN’T WORTH A SINGLE FUCKING SECOND OF HER TIME YOU TRIED TO RAPE HER AND SHE FORGAVE YOU WHY DO YOU GET TO BE FORGIVEN WHY YOU AND NOT ME?!”

He was roaring into Spike’s face, so close he could see flecks of his own spit dotted on his cheeks and still Spike didn’t move, didn’t wilt as he always did these days. 

“You think I want this?” he hissed back, some of that old piss-and-vinegar light in his eyes. “You think I want to see her letting me in again, after what I did to her? I came back to help, not so she could feel sorry for me. Fuck, you wanna be forgiven? You don’t know what you’re talking about, boy. I didn’t think I could feel worse and then she - she -”

The light faded again and Spike’s voice faltered and failed. “I wish she’d just kill me.”

“It’d be easier if Anya had just cursed me or something,” Xander admitted quietly, surprising himself. He hadn't even known he'd felt it 'til he'd said it. “Instead I’m hanging here in this in between space. She doesn’t hate me, she doesn’t love me, she doesn’t wanna get back together and I don’t wanna be with anyone else. And the worst part is -”

“You can’t even be angry with her, because you deserve every sting, every cut an’ more besides.” 

There was an awkward pause, strings of uncomfortable understanding stretching between them. Xander realised that he was still standing well inside Spike’s personal space, which meant Spike was standing well inside his. He backed up a step, hating the feeling that he was giving ground but Spike was the one who looked away first. Maybe he was as creeped out by their new ‘finishing each other’s sentences’ vibe as Xander was. 

“‘M goin’ back to bed,” he mumbled and Xander let him go, feeling more off balance and out of sorts than ever. 

* * * 

Saturday morning meant Saturday morning cartoons. Xander flopped in front of the TV and ate more crappy, sugary cereal, trying very hard not to think. One sneaky thought kept creeping back in though. _Why is it that I feel like I have more in common with Spike right now than I do with my own friends?_

Speak of the devil. Xander deliberately ignored him as he sloped out of his repurposed closet to the fridge, hunting for the bag of blood buried in the vegetable drawer. Because Xander now kept pig’s blood in his fridge, next to the actual food. Sometimes it leaked. He stayed silent as Spike poured the blood into a glass and punched the time into the microwave. _Do not engage with the vampire._ He was so not ready for anymore of the touchy-feely. 

“You going back to sleep?” he asked. No, Xander mouth, what are you doing?

Spike grunted something that might have been an affirmative. 

“You gonna start howling again if you do?”   


“Fucked if I know,” muttered Spike and took his breakfast out of the microwave before it could ding. 

“There’s Farscape reruns on Sci-fi,” he said. He never had had much control over his mouth. Spike just looked at him. 

“So?” he said finally.

“So sit your ass down and watch ‘em with me.”  


Predictably, Spike bristled at that. 

“Don’ need your pity,” he growled. 

“I don’t pity you.” _Lie._ “I hate you. And if you’re gonna start singing sleep opera again, you can do it in here, so I don’t have to throw shit at your door to wake you up.”

“You’re one lazy piece of shit, Harris,” said Spike, but for all his big show of contempt, he sank down onto the opposite end of the couch, as far from Xander as he could get. Fine by him. 

“Spill that on my couch and I’ll drown you in holy water,” he warned, pointing at Spike’s big glass of pig juice. Spike slurped from it obnoxiously in response and Xander almost laughed. He felt it threatening in his stomach and he quashed the impulse mercilessly. This was getting too friendly. Eating breakfast in their pajamas - or jeans in Spike’s case, but he hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt - watching mindless TV, banter bordering on playful; in a deeply strange turn of events, he was reminded of Jesse. God, he hadn’t thought about Jesse in years and he hadn’t had a real male friend in much longer than that. Not that he didn’t love the women in his life, he would die for them (and not to brag or anything, but that love had saved the world this one time) but sometimes he missed it, that connection you could have with another guy. It could be simple, without the crossed wires and miscommunications that inevitably cropped up with the opposite sex. He understood this on some basic, genetic level. 

Beside him, Spike chugged the end of his blood and belched. Vampires needed to belch? Not to be outdone, Xander drank the rest of the milk in his bowl and belched louder and Spike actually cracked a smile. It was the first time he’d seen that expression since he’d got back all souled up and Angel-grim, genuine amusement as opposed to insane hysteria or the terrifyingly worshipful smile he’d aimed at Buffy in the middle of his delirium. The sneaky thought nudged him again. This time it’d brought a friend. _He’s just a man,_ it whispered. _Not a very good man, and one distinctly lacking in the pulse department at that, but still a man._

“Shut up,” said Xander under his breath and Spike looked at him, affronted. 

“Di’n’ say a thing,” he protested and Xander pointedly turned up the volume on the TV. 

“Just watch,” he said, unwilling to examine the philosophical ramifications of Spike the Manpire at this hour in the morning. Spike grumbled but miraculously obeyed - twice in one day, is this an alternate universe? - and Xander settled deeper into the cushions behind him and went back to not thinking. After a while, Spike fell asleep, which made sense, given that 8am was probably the equivalent of midnight or whatever for a vampire’s biological clock and then started to snore lightly, which made no sense whatsoever, because what kind of vampire breathed in his sleep? He did not, however, start screaming again and Xander counted that as a win.


End file.
